Co-authors Robert R. Hieronimus, Ph.D. and Laura E. Cortner will unveil the messages from our American Goddess in this presentation on their new book, The Secret Life of Lady Liberty: Goddess in the New World. Tuesday, September 12, 2017 at 7:00 PM, at the Center for Spiritual Living in Reisterstown. Considering the Statue of Liberty, the iconic symbol of America, as a divine female, confident in her own power, will help you understand the intentions of our founding fathers and mothers when they chose this image to rally the revolution. Hieronimus and Cortner will break down the symbolism of America’s “Mom,” showing how we are all inseparable from the divine and from each other. From the goddess energy coursing through American history to the major influence of Native American philosophy on our concepts of “liberty,” the Statue of Liberty inspires activism and asks “Where are your women?”

The attack on the Statue of Liberty from the White House yesterday echoes an old pattern of the radical right and extremist Christians. Cherry pick a little bit of accurate history and then crumple it up, sprinkle in a bit of sound-alike association, add a dollop of fear of “the other,” and you, too, can sound like an historical authority supporting completely a-historical interpretations.

White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller was technically accurate in his history lesson about the plaque with the “New Colossus” sonnet being added to the Statue of Liberty almost two decades after the statue itself was unveiled. He was also accurate in pointing out that U.S. immigration policies have ebbed and flowed dramatically over time. In fact, during the construction period for the Statue of Liberty, the U.S. passed its first blatantly biased immigration law. The exclusion of Chinese immigrants in 1882 was the first of many more to follow as that “golden door” began to close in 1921. Quotas were then imposed to restrict immigrants from “undesirable” countries in an attempt “to preserve the ideal of American homogeneity.” (Immigration Act of 1924) Anti-immigration advocates even adopted the Statue of Liberty in the early days to show her holding her nose against the “Dregs of Europe.”

Even though U.S. immigration policies have been anything but welcoming at times, and even though it was not the original intention of the designers, the mythic identity of the Statue of Liberty as welcoming any and all “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” has firmly entered American mythological folklore. Continue reading→

Environmental Music Films was inspired by The Secret Life of Lady Liberty to make a music video with music by Kris Farquhar. Check out more of their work on YouTube and Facebook, and watch the video here:

A national passion for the Statue of Liberty has been ignited as seen here in our collection of protest actions and political cartoons. Lady Liberty sightings are rapidly increasing ever since our president revealed he believes he “can do anything, grab them by the pussy, anything,” and then illegally attempted to ban immigration.

When we published our book The Secret Life of Lady Liberty we thought the election of our first female president would ignite a new national passion for the Statue of Liberty as America’s Mom. How wrong we were! Our goddess Lady Liberty has a timeline and a purpose of her own and she is rising up, NOW! Join us!

Many people are dressing up as Lady Liberty in protests around the world, and dozens of articles and blogs in the past few days are illustrated with pictures of the Statue of Liberty in distress. And it’s no wonder our American Goddess is suddenly popular again – she’s the obvious choice when symbolically opposing Mr. Trump’s war of hatred on immigrants.

What is less known is how much hatred many in the alt-right harbor toward the symbol of Lady Liberty herself – and for reasons that have nothing to do with immigration. Even though the Statue of Liberty is admired as a symbol of universal compassion all over the world, and in fact replicas have been spotted in over 25 nations (including China, but not in Russia!), there are a growing number of Americans who are swallowing the conspiracy theories about her promulgated by the extremist Christians like the Dominionists of the New Apostolic Reformation. Their Christian fundamentalist upbringing has taught them to call her Satan.

Long before the debate over immigration took center stage, the evangelicals began conspiring to tear down the Statue of Liberty and replace it with a giant cross. Seriously. Continue reading→

Despite the shock and dismay from the presidential election, we cling to the knowledge that the Goddess still rises. In fact, the female archetype is about the only thing that can save us now. The female divine is at the very root of the founding of this nation, and one look at the green lady in the New York Harbor with her torch held high tells us that the female divine is what lights the way to a brighter future as well.

Focus on these symbols. Remember that symbols are the only way to communicate with the subconscious, where true change occurs. Words and language and facts don’t matter to the subconscious, images do.

What attracted us to study the suffragists of the early 20th century was their successful use of symbolism to convince the reluctant majority to join their radical cause. They chose symbols for themselves that fit right into the American tradition, thus subconsciously comforting those afraid of change. Since the founding of our Republic, Americans have used the allegorical female to convey messages of so-called WOMEN’s strengths — strengths such as caregiving, caution, protection of the young, and enlightenment. Continue reading→

Now there’s a headline you won’t see in most history books about the Statue of Liberty! Yet, surprisingly, a growing number of people are buying into this wild conspiracy theory that Lady Liberty is demonic because she is a goddess, and should be torn down. Most of our academic friends pooh-pooh these theories, dismissing them with the wave of a hand as irrelevant, based on the lack of any historical evidence behind them. We take these theories quite seriously, however, and have spent years tracking this attempt to recast the Statue of Liberty as the Whore of Babylon. Here’s why: These beliefs represent the fringes of a much larger attack on religious freedom in the United States – and because when you look behind the claim that all goddesses are Satan-in-disguise you find a not-so-veiled attack on women’s rights. Continue reading→

The history of the Statue of Liberty is bookended by the stories of the first two women to run for president. As the towering image of a giant woman standing for liberty rose up in a nation where women had no liberty, the hypocrisy inspired a noticeable uptick in the creativity demonstrated by women’s rights activists. Continue reading→